EVENTS

A Matter of Scale, A Matter of Fail

When I was making Jazzlet’s breadknife, [stderr] I originally spec’d it as quite a bit larger. This is how it came out.

Perhaps, eventually, I’ll need a piece of metal that’s about that size/shape, and – if I do – I know where it is. The aesthetics of this thing are all wrong; it looks like something for harpooning a whale.

Most of the knifemakers I know have big stacks of failures lying around, so if someone says “Hey, I would like to commission a damasteel tactical spork!” [you know that will happen] you can rummage around and pull up some stock. I have known a few artists who never recycle from themselves – they throw everything away – but that’s not me; I’m happy with “looks cool.”

For example, someone in The Commentariat(tm) had mentioned straight-edge razors and, since the oven was hot and I had some chunks of fail lying around, I decided to see if I could hammer out an “anti neck-beard device.” Mostly it was an excuse to do another radical hollow-grind; I really like them.

It feels pretty good in my hand, but it doesn’t look right – I dislike the transition between the back and the handle, and I should have thought about how to attach a swinging cover to it. Now that I’ve quenched it, I can’t make holes in it unless I want to chew up a couple of end-mills. It’s pretty sharp, though it still needs some detail shaping and I haven’t seriously tried to sharpen it at all. Gangsta!

Here’s another fail:

There is a fail-window between when you quench a blade, and you temper it. Quenching it hardens the steel and crystallizes it, and tempering relaxes the steel but leaves it mostly hard while increasing its flexibility and resistance to shock. If you quench the bread-knife you’re making, leave it on the anvil, and knock it onto the floor, it can do this:-klink-

My dad’s sister used to run with the bad kids (because her big brother was a total nerd) and she told me stories of how the hot rodders used to fight with straight razors. Nope, nope, nopeitty, nope!

Now I am picturing a samurai sword-mounted straight razor about 2 feet long.

Comments

Traditional Japanese kamisori razors (such as these) don’t have covers.

The blade geometry is pretty critical, because the way you hone a razor is to lay it on the stone so that both the edge and the spine make contact – you so have to get the width of the blade and the thickness of the spine set so that that gives you the correct sharpening angle.

Tabby Lavalamp@#3:
It’s going to happen. I already have a swage block for spoons; I just need a big enough and flat enough piece of material; it should actually be pretty easy to make, so long as I resist the urge to sharpen the inner edges of the tines.

I’m experimenting with using various photochemicals to color steel (because I have them!) and have found that selenium toner makes 1095 turn a lovely tactical black.

I love the handle of the razor, but have to agree that the transition from the handle to the back of the blade lacks elegance. you can certainly do better, but I think, were I you I’d bare Dunc’s comment in mind, and not have a fixed cover. I can’t see how you would make one that would match the eleance of the rest of the piece, though that may be a lack of imaginatioin on my part in this medium.

Dunc@#1:Traditional Japanese kamisori razors (such as these) don’t have covers.

Yes. They’re interesting – mostly, they seem to be made from scraps. I like the organic look they have.

I always wondered if the scene in Seven Samurai where Shimoda has his head shaved, was shot live. That was my first encounter, visually, with Japanese straight razors.

The blade geometry is pretty critical, because the way you hone a razor is to lay it on the stone so that both the edge and the spine make contact – you so have to get the width of the blade and the thickness of the spine set so that that gives you the correct sharpening angle.

Yup. In terms of grinding it, that means picking the right spot on the wheel-belt to make contact with the steel, so that when the steel goes away you wind up with a curve that is not only correct but correctly angled and centered the right distance from the edge. That’s one reason I like radical hollow grinds; they punish you hard if you are even a tiny bit off.
… and you’re always off. I took the little razor to my horizontally-mounted 12″ disc grinder with some 1200-grit and I could see I was off by a few thousandths. That grind fixed it but it also made a little tiny bevel on the top of the bevel. Damn machinists!

I suppose the next step would be some 3000-grit on a surfacing plate and then a piece of glass with some aluminum oxide powder and wd40.

I suppose the next step would be some 3000-grit on a surfacing plate and then a piece of glass with some aluminum oxide powder and wd40.

When my Dovo razor needs honed, I do it on a very hard natural stone that’s somewhere around 12k grit, then finish it on a leather strop loaded with diamond paste – 1 micron on one side, 0.5 micron on the other. 3k grit is barely getting started for honing a razor, and a typical final hone is 10k. A lot of people finish with a chromium oxide paste.